RUSH: The Khashoggi situation continues to be… If you watched the Drive-By Media, the biggest news of the day continues to be the death of the so-called journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. I’ve been waiting for this. There’s a story out there at the Washington Post: “Conservatives Mount a Whisper Campaign Smearing Khashoggi in Defense of Trump,” and, of course, your host is mentioned prominently in this story.

There’s no whisper about this campaign. I’m not whispering anything about this when I’m speaking about this. I’m shouting it from the rooftops! There is no question what this is. I think anybody that pays any attention to the media knows: If the media is focusing on it, in the last 2-1/2 years, it’s because they think they can do great damage to Donald Trump with it. Pure and simple! Open and shut, front and back, that’s it! They don’t care about Khashoggi.

They want you to think they do because of the brotherhood and the brethren of journalists, but that’s not what this is. And, in the process, they’re not telling anybody who Khashoggi really was. We are. I’m attempting to tell you who he was and what he stood for. But this, in a nutshell, is an attempt to damage Donald Trump’s foreign policy by making him cave and renounce a close relationship with Saudi Arabia.

It is also about militant Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood of which Jamal Khashoggi was a practicing, active member. He went to school with Osama Bin Laden. They were buddies! But they diverged in terms of tactics. Bin Laden decided to go the terrorist route and Khashoggi went the Muslim Brotherhood route, which is… I mean, it’s pro-violent.

But their PR is that they attempt to achieve their objectives within the, quote-unquote, “democratic process,” the political process. They want a united Arab world, and the Saudis are the biggest problem to that because the Saudis are too close to the United States. The Saudis are the No. 1 buyers of American weapons. No. 1! They spend more money buying American arms than any other nation. That might surprise you, but it happens to be true.

The Saudis have also become recent allies with us and Israel against Iran. Now, don’t laugh at this. If you go back and look at Barack Hussein O, who the Drive-By Media loves? Well, Obama loved Iran, too. Obama paid Iran $1.8 billion in pallet-loaded cash. Obama signed a nuclear deal with Iran that was essentially a pathway for them to achieve nuclear weapons. Trump has since torn that up.

That ticked them off. That sets another rewind of an Obama policy. So if Obama loved Iran, or thought it was okay at least to have an allied relationship with them or less adversarial, then so does the Drive-By Media. But none of this about Khashoggi is designed… It’s not intended to say that he deserved to die. Don’t misunderstand. Folks, we’re between a rock and a hard place here.

Every day, we’re faced with a challenge. The media picks a story that is their No. 1 story, and its purpose is very clear: Damage, destroy whatever, as much as they can, Donald Trump. We have to defend him. At least I think this. This is my reaction to all of this. I don’t want ’em taking Trump out. I don’t want ’emm damaging Trump. I don’t want any of this to happen. This is all bogus! I want the trajectory this country is on to remain.

I want us to remain on that trajectory. I want to beat back the insanity and the abnormality and the psychological disorders that have become the Democrat Party. I do not want those people in charge and leading and governing this country. It will be a disaster if that happens. It will be an absolute disaster. I got an e-mail from a friend of mine last night who is just beside himself over the fact that Republicans might lose the House. He is convinced…

This guy is a former New York liberal, by the way. He reformed about 20 years ago. He’s having trouble dealing with the possibility that the Democrats might win the House. He’s having trouble dealing with the fact that a majority of the American people might want that. I understand. I agree with him completely. It doesn’t make any sense. The Democrat Party doesn’t deserve to be winning anything just on the basis of the way they comported themselves in the Kavanaugh situation.

But that’s just the latest. The Democrat Party has become the home of the mentally unstable who have used the political system to fix whatever problems they have or grievances they think they have. And it all revolves around the age-old argument of the purpose of government. It really is. Take all of this that’s happening domestically, and when you synthesize it down — when you boil it all down to its essence — it’s about the role of government.

And it’s about the fact that the Democrats do not want to promote self-reliance. They don’t want to promote rugged individualism. They don’t want to promote people dealing with life, fixing situations, dealing and facing adversity and overcoming it, becoming better people. They want people to remain inept, incompetent, dependent, screwed up, in a mess, thinking the government is the solution — and the solution is not really a solution.

The solution that the Democrat voters want is punishment for people they think are responsible for the misery in their lives. Why would we want that to triumph? Well, we don’t. But in the mission to bring that about, here comes this Khashoggi story, and as far as the Drive-Bys are concerned, it’s an open opportunity to blaspheme Trump, to damage Trump. The ultimate aim is to get Trump to cave and abandon Saudi Arabia.

It’s not that the Drive-Bys have anything on Saudi Arabia. It’s just to get Trump to cave, period. Just to prove that they can manipulate, intimidate Trump into going against his instincts. They’ve been trying to do that since the campaign. They have failed practically in every effort they’ve made. They are dying to be able to say they pressured Trump into doing something he didn’t want to do because he’s afraid of them, and they think they’re getting close.

When Trump is out there saying, “Yeah, it looks like Khashoggi died. Looks like it is a pretty good bet Khashoggi…” they think they are getting close and all jammed up and intrigued and all get more jazzed for this.” That’s why we tell you who Khashoggi is. Not because anybody thinks he deserved to die, but the media never tells you the truth about anything! Not anymore. Not where it concerns Trump. How many of you think…?

Let me just ask you a question. Remember this faceless, nameless, anonymous op-ed that ran in the New York Times, supposedly written by somebody in the Trump inner circle in the West Wing, talking about bad it is in there. How dangerously, childish and immature Trump is. How unprepared. How ill-equipped, how incompetent, how at risk we all are. But then we were assured by whoever wrote this thing (summarized):

“Don’t worry! There are adults like us that are protecting this country from President Trump, and you can count on us to continue.” Well, everybody said, “Well, who is this? Who wrote this?” They began circulating names. You notice we don’t have an identity yet. Not possible. Not possible that whoever wrote this has not been outed. After all this many weeks, not possible. Not possible that the person who wrote it hasn’t outed him or herself for the fame alone, for the media accolades alone.

Another thing: Why has it been forgotten? I mean, it’s still a pretty damn big deal that there is that kind of a traitor inside the West Wing. Why has it been forgotten? Because it didn’t work. That’s why they are on to other things. Have you noticed there’s no news about Russian collusion? Have you noticed that? Why is that? Because it’s not a big deal to people getting ready to vote. It’s not an issue on which people’s votes will turn. That’s why the media dropped it.

They tried to make it “the” issue. They did everything they could to make Russian collusion and “Trump did it” the issue for 2-1/2 years. Here we are and the midterms are a little over two weeks away, not a word about it, other than this Mueller report supposedly being out there. But now, Valerie Jarrett’s daughter, who is a reporterette at CNN… No bias there. Valerie Jarrett’s daughter, says, “Calm down. The Mueller investigation is not over. It’s going to be going on long after the midterms.”

Really? Well, then why leak that Mueller has about wrapped it up and his report is ready to go? Because, as somebody pointed out yesterday — or maybe it was something else. What are the odds that between now and Election Day The New York Times is going to have some story, supposedly containing nuts-and-bolts details of the Mueller report? It will be anonymously written or anonymously sourced. I don’t think you should discount that possibility at all.

The issues that matter — the issues that are polling right now, and the issues that are mattering in terms of people voting — are what? Immigration, immigration caravan, immigration and health care. Those happen to be the two primary issues. Democrats and the Drive-Bys haven’t been talking about that at all leading up to this. They’ve tried to get people concerned about collusion and the mistreatment of women.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Jeremy in Mayfield, Kentucky. You are next on Open Line Friday. Hi.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush. Am I coming in loud and clear?

RUSH: You are, sir. Hear you just fine.

CALLER: Thanks, it’s a $60 Samsung, so, you know, whatever. Yeah, I’m —

RUSH: Well, we all have our obstacles to bear in life. You’re overcoming this pretty well. I hear you pretty well.

CALLER: Thank you. You know, I’m a Trump… I voted for Trump. I’m an avid Trump voter and America first in the most historic sense and I’m an American patriot. So take that in context with my question here. How can the United States be allies with countries… And you mentioned this in the first part of your monologue, we’re allies with Saudi Arabia and Israel. How can we be allies with Saudi Arabia when the Pentagon papers released in 2016 showed that they funded 9/11, also Israel has attacked us in the past, like the USS Liberty, we had the Lavon Affair. Can you clear that up for me?

RUSH: Well, on the Saudi side, yeah. The Israelis spy on us too. Everybody spies on everybody. You know, Jonathan Pollard, he was an Israeli spy that got caught and the Israelis wanted him back unharmed. We said, “Screw you! We’re your benefactor. You don’t spy on us!” and they said, “Yes we do, and we’ll continue to spy because we can’t trust anybody. We’re Israel.” Particularly when Democrats are in the White House, that’s a factor.

Now, when it comes to the Saudis, I want to share with you… Because your question here is really good. I remember after 9/11 happened, when I learned that… It was either all 19 or like 90%, 80% of the 19 hijackers were Saudi… I remember I was talking with William F. Buckley about a number of things, not just this and I brought that up. And I remember him getting frustrated with me about it. He said, “What does it have to do with anything?” And I said, “I don’t understand.

“The Saudi government supposedly is an ally, and yet these hijackers come from Saudi Arabia.” He said, “Are you saying the Saudi royal family is behind this?” I said, “How can we say that they’re not?” That is when I began to try to learn about the relationship of the Saudi royal family to Islam. That’s when I started asking experts. One of the people I talked to was Andy McCarthy again because he has tried as a United States attorney, assistant United States attorney, Southern District of New York.

He was the lead prosecutor on the Blind Sheikh case, and it was Andy who said that he thought the Blind Sheikh was just acting out and being a radical inventor of various aspects of Islam as part of his technique to mobilize and create even more membership in his group. And then he started reading the things that the Blind Sheikh believes, and he found out none of this is made up! This call for terrorism, dealing with infidels, it’s right there in the Koran, if you read it right, this is exactly what is in the book. And he was stunned… He told me he was.

So when you then realize that the Saudi royal family is in charge of worldwide Islam, because the holy sites are there, Mecca and Medina. I found that it is absolutely true, that the Saudi royal family is essentially the shield and the impetus behind worldwide Islam. Well, in Saudi Arabia, the branch of Islam that is… Just to make it easy here and being understood, terrorist Islam comes from Wahhabism. For those of you who heard me say this yesterday, I beg your indulgence.

Wahhabi Islam is where the really radical clerics and Imams are who are welcoming anybody they can into their mosques and just literally converting them into suicide bombers, terrorists, and what have you, under the auspices of Islam. And the Saudi royal family stood by and let it all happen. Whether they were instrumental in advocating it, don’t know, but Saudi-funded charities all over the world promoted Wahhabism.

And that’s when I went back to Mr. Buckley and said, “I don’t see how the Saudi royal family, the Saudi government can be separated from these 19 hijackers.” Well, that’s why it’s interesting to tell the story of the crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman. Mohammad bin Salman wants to, if we are to believe him, he wants to reform the Saudi Arabian peninsula, the whole country, and its relationship to Islam, all because of money, economics, primarily. He doesn’t like the fact that Saudi Arabia is solely dependent on the sale of oil for all of its wealth.

He wants to branch out. He wants other people investing, other industries, individuals investing in Saudi Arabia for things unrelated to dollars or petrodollars and oil. So he sought out interest in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, typical places, and other countries as well. And part and parcel of his reform is the… I don’t know what word… Abandonment or the distancing from Wahhabism. According to bin Salman, Saudi Arabia cannot modernize and cannot achieve his reform goals if Wahhabism is still the branch of Islam associated with the Saudi royal family.

Well, this brings us to Khashoggi again and the Muslim brotherhood. They don’t want any of these reforms. They don’t want any Western influences in any Islamic country, much less Saudi Arabia where Mecca and Medina are. They do not want Wahhabism watered down. They want the Arab spring. They don’t want secularism anywhere and Mohammad bin Salman represents a bit of that. It’s fascinating that he’s been brought to a screeching halt on these reforms.

With the death of Khashoggi, this has brought to a screeching halt. And now there’s a story today that the royal family, they have a council. I often wondered, well, who determines…? Well, these kings have countless sons. They have 15 different wives. They’ve got kids with every one of their wives. So a Saudi king could have 20 sons. How does he determine which one’s the crown prince? How does he determine which one’s gonna be his heir? It’s not just first in line.

They have a council. They have an interfamily council, a royal family council that determines the lineage, the crown prince, the heirs, and in what order. Bin Salman, Mohammad bin Salman is not the oldest son of the current King Salman. He was chosen largely because of his reform ideas, but now, the story out today says that the… We don’t know if it’s true or not… The royal family is having crisis meetings and maybe going to replace Mohammad bin Salman as crown prince.

Now, many people think that this is up to the king. The king determines which of his sons will be the next king, but it’s not the case. So all of these plans for modernization, if they were true… I have to throw that out as a caveat. All these plans for reform have been brought to a screeching halt by the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, which is also very unhappy with Saudi Arabia because the clown that runs Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he is not one of these guys that wants Western influence…

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Tanswer to the question is Jared Kushner has been instrumental in working with Mohammad bin Salman on these reforms, and it would make sense — make far more sense — to be allied with Saudi Arabia if they are, as a government, going to distance themselves from the Wahhabi Islam that was largely behind the 9/11 hijackers and their motivation. That would be a big deal. But as I say, those reforms have been brought to a screeching halt with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Which happened in Turkey!

It didn’t happen in Saudi Arabia.

It didn’t happen in Washington.

It happened in Turkey, which is also an Islamic country not happy with the way the Saudis are running Islam. There’s so much more to this than the Drive-Bys are suggesting, because the Drive-Bys just want to use this to get Trump, to show Trump’s ineffectiveness or to show that Trump is aligned with tyrants or whatever.